At the same time he believed that she was now interposing them
between the present and the past, and forbidding with them any return to
the mood of their last meeting in Carlsbad. He looked at her ladylike
composure and unconsciousness, and wondered if she could be the same
person and the same person as they who lost themselves in the crowd that
night and heard and said words palpitant with fate. Perhaps there had
been no such words; perhaps it was all a hallucination. He must leave her
to recognize that it was reality; till she did so, he felt bitterly that
there was nothing for him but submission and patience; if she never did
so, there was nothing for him but acquiescence.
In this talk and in the talks they had afterwards she seemed willing
enough to speak of what had happened since: of coming on to Wurzburg with
the Addings and of finding the Marches there; of Rose's collapse, and of
his mother's flight seaward with him in the care of Kenby, who was so
fortunately going to Holland, too. He on his side told her of going to
Wurzburg for the manoeuvres, and they agreed that it was very strange
they had not met.
She did not try to keep their relations from taking the domestic
character which was inevitable, and it seemed to him that this in itself
was significant of a determination on her part that was fatal to his
hopes.
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